Arsenal confirm (slight) stadium capacity increase

Arsenal have confirmed that the capacity of Emirates Stadium will increase to 60,600 as the club adds 780 extra seats.

The capacity of the arena has dropped below 60,000 since it opened in July 2016 due to safety requirements and improvements to facilities for disabled supporters.

The work is set to take place over the course of the next two summers and will involve adding an additional row of seating to Club Level.

Alongside this work, Arsenal have also confirmed refurbishment to additional areas of Club Level over the next two years. The first upgrade will be to Dial Square in the summer of 2018, which will see the area transformed to celebrate the club’s original name of Dial Square Football Club.

“The development of Club Level is crucial to ensuring fan experience at games is at its best whilst also enabling us to stay at the forefront of stadium hospitality.

“As we continue to face high demand for tickets in all areas of Emirates Stadium, this is a significant investment to ensure that as many supporters as possible are able to watch the team play at Emirates Stadium.”

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Le Jim

Does anyone know if there’s ability to significantly expand the Emirates’ capacity in the future? I imagine it would be a lot harder for the modern bowl stadiums compared to the ‘traditional’ stadiums with separate, tiered stands. Just wondering.

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1 year ago

InTheNorthBank

Off the top of my head, I do recall when the stadium was opened that it was announced that future expansion was possible. But, if I remember correctly, expansion is potentially prohibited by existing transport links (as opposed to architecture)

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1 year ago

Le Jim

Yeah I’ve just done some reading and a few people were saying that it was limited to 60,500 by Islington Council, unless we paid for upgrades to the station or Holloway road or something. Cheers.

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1 year ago

Paul

I think you’re right. Begs the question, how have Spurs got away with it? Shocking transport links at WHL.

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1 year ago

Badaab

The transport links will just mysteriously burn down if they refuse. Or something.

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1 year ago

Crash Fistfight

Because Haringey Council has caved in to every demand from Tottenham in relation to the planning process?

Poor old professional football club, getting paid hundreds of millions, Tottenham Hotspur. How can they possibly make the site affordable without making any provision for affordable housing, etc.?

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1 year ago

Andy Mack

The area around Shite Fart Lane is really run down and Haringey council are desperate to rejuvenate the area. So they’ve encouraged the spuddies in every way that they can. Any problems they’ve had concerning planning have come from outside authorities like national heritage who stopped them knocking down a couple of buildings.
Unfortunately Islington didn’t have the same needs when we were building our stadium, so we’ve been forced to spend loads on local amenities / services and we still have problems with Transport, even though it’s better than our neighbours…

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1 year ago

TeeCee

I’d hesitate to describe an area with a few thousand additional spuds wandering around it on match days as “rejuvenated”.

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1 year ago

Andy Mack

I don’t know what’s involved in the ‘rejuvenation’ but I’d guess there area will have some new non spuddie things for non-match days

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1 year ago

Cliff Bastin

They get leeway because their ground has been found to be traditionally a great place for other teams to win the league.

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1 year ago

Andy Mack

The worrying thing is that they could be using Real Madrid money to pay for the stadium if they sell the window licker, Allie or even Pochettino to them…

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1 year ago

Charlie George Told Us

During in the stadium tours they say there isn’t room and permission wouldn’t be granted.

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1 year ago

lordgunner

its plenty of room, the original stadium plan was for near 80000, but the council refuse and limited us to 60K , the seat at the emirate are bigger than most stadium in the UK because of that, we could replace some seat with smaller one and fit easiily 15K more people

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1 year ago

Another Paul

A standing area would probably do it. Look at any stadium in Germany!

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1 year ago

Martin

Except that standing areas are illegal so it cannot be done

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1 year ago

punter

Yep. Unless they do some structural changes to the roof. Which would mean building up and slightly out and rebuilding sections of the roof. I imagine they can do that if they want, but thats serious amount of work involved…

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1 year ago

Crash Fistfight

Aren’t the seats in the Emirates something like 20% bigger than the normal sized seats in other stadia? You could easily increase the capacity just by changing to the smaller, hard plastic-y seats that other grounds have.

As others have said though, it’s to do with transport/planning.

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1 year ago

J Dizzle

Two questions spring to mind…
Does this make the Emirates bigger than the new Shite hart lane?
Does 750 new seats in the club level do anything to increase ‘fan experience’??

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1 year ago

LCham

I believe theirs is planned to be 61,000.
Clearly the board have missed yet another an easy opportunity to please the fans.

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1 year ago

Fungunner

The stadium capacity will be 61,559. I would imagine they have increased capacity as much as legal restrictions allow.

“Fan experience ” what a horrible corporate phrase ! We’re NOT fans ! We are SUPPORTERS ! We support the club with our presence at games by buying merchandise etc we are not like screaming girls at a Take That concert ! As supporters being entertained is secondary to our team winning or coming from behind to snatch a last minute draw ! Fans are guaranteed to be entertained by whoever their a fan of as supporters there is NO such guarantee! Fans only suffer when a a group member leaves or the band they follow break up or their favourite movie actor stars in a turkey A supporter kicks and heads every ball we feel like we’ve been stabbed every time the opposition score or kicked in the gut but when we score we are overjoyed and the pain is forgotten ! A fan can be a fan of several groups or things and change allegiance at the drop of a hat a supporter is wedded to his/her club of choice no matter what and unlike a marriage there can be no divorce, there can be periods of anger , frustration and despair and perhaps a short separation but those never last a true supporter SUPPORTS his club for life they pass on that support to offspring like a legacy which results in generations of support for their club ! To call us fans and talk of match day stadium experience is demeaning and a further Americanisation of our club ! Those in charge really do not get what it is to be a SUPPORTER !

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1 year ago

Yaseen

A
Appreciate

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1 year ago

G-Man

Ffs bring down the prices and encourage a Carabao Cup atmosphere inside he Emirates every game!

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1 year ago

john

At league cup matches there is a very poor atmosphere. Loads of people spend the first ten minutes of the match standing around like dummies because they can’t find their seats, then they sing stand up if you hate tottnum even though they’ve never been to a derby! Loads seem to leave ten minutes before half time for a half hour meal and then leave early so they miss the crush. What was the point in coming?

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1 year ago

Cid

And they’re putting fucking TV screens on the underside of the upper tier, or something. Worried we can’t see the big screens during the game. Gone are the days when seeing footballers at the football was considered enough.